Some Sh*t I made Up

     I've been making shit up all my life, and occasionally I get a paycheck from it. (I'm not about to send you to a Pintrest page - because I don't make artsy-fartsy crafty shit, and also because I have no idea how Pintrest works and it intimidates me.) I've made a LOT of commercials. But back in the 90s (which to me still doesn't seem all that long ago, except that just yesterday my daughter and I were in the car listening to SiriusXM's Hits One, and some pop star in her song referred to the 90s as the "good old days," and I'm all like, Fuck you, pop star, I was already an adult in the 90s, a 'long time ago' for you was last month when you still had your oh-so-outdated phone that you had purchased only the month before THAT. Come to think of it, you probably didn't even purchase that phone yourself, because aren't you, like fifteen? Holy hell, you're not even old enough to DRIVE yourself to the phone store, much less purchase a phone and sign a two-year usage agreement, and anybody who isn't at LEAST three decades old should be legally forbidden to talk about "the good old days," because you haven't had enough DAYS, period, for any of them to be OLD. So fuck off.)

     What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

     Back in the 90s I worked on a TV show called Wishbone. And what I loved about working on that show (aside from the paychecks, which were pretty sweet considering we aired on PBS) was the fact that I had lots of opportunities to make shit up. Case in point:

        You can watch the whole episode if you like; it's pretty good. (Plus any geeks who read my blog will see a cameo by the one and only Amy Acker. Yes, THAT Amy Acker: Angel, Alias, Law & Order, Justice League, The Cabin in the Woods, etc. She started her TV career with us. And she won't return my calls these days. Probably because she's so successful, or maybe because I don't actually have her number and have never even tried to call her.) The point I'm making, though, starts around the 4:50 mark. The dog was supposed to wake up, grab a spear in his mouth and run out the door, only that totally didn't happen. So I had to make some shit up. (I should probably point out for the two of you who aren't family that I provided the voice for the dog in the show. That's NOT me in a tiny little dog suit, though if it was we'd have won all kinds of awards for costuming, and probably for defying the laws of physics.) In show business this is called improvisation, and it's a pretty good metaphor for how I've lived my life.

     Here's some more shit I made up:

   
     Every one of those classic movies scenes that we parodied was made up on the spot. We didn't eat any of that food we grilled, either. It tasted like shoe.

     Anyway, this is the kind of thing I've done, in one form or another, for over twenty years. It's pretty much always fun, except for the times it's a total ass-whipping, which makes it just like every other job in the world. The difference is, if you point at me and laugh at my job, that's okay. Try that shit in your own office with a co-worker, though, and it's all hostile work environment and sensitivity training. 

     So yeah. No thanks to that. You can keep pointing and laughing at me. And I'll keep making shit up.